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Eday, Huntersquoy
Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)
Site Name Eday, Huntersquoy
Classification Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)
Canmore ID 3142
Site Number HY53NE 1
NGR HY 5626 3774
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/3142
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish Eday
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
HY53NE 1 5626 3774
(HY 56263774) Standing Stones (NR).
Erd House (NR)
OS 6" map, Orkney, 2nd ed., (1900).
An Orkney-Cromarty type chambered round cairn, excavated by Calder in 1936 and shown to have two contemporary superimposed chambers. The cairn is inconspicuous and has been so robbed that only 1'to 2' of debris remains from which protrude two upright stones,the remnants of the tripartite upper chamber. The Bookan-type lower chamber excavated into the hillside is complete,but there is usually 2'to 3'of water lying in the chamber and passage.
The cairn was greatly ruined at the time of excavation but was 33' to 36'in diameter and edged by a walling of thin laid slabs, the lower course projecting 5"to 6" as a footing,the upper course surviving only in places. A hearth, possibly contemporary with the cairn, lay to the east. According to the proprietor in 1936, the locality is known as 'Huntersquoy'.
Finds from the cairn were donated to ther National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) by Major H H Hebden, Carrick House, Eday in 1938.
C S T Calder 1938; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1939 (Donations); RCAHMS 1946; A S Henshall 1963.
A chambered cairn as described and planned by Henshall.
Re-surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (NKB), 24 July 1970.
This two-storeyed cairn was excavated by Calder in 1936; the lower chamber, of Bookan type, was (and presumably remains) intact, but very little survived of the upper structure, which had a separate entrance-passage.
It is now an inconspicuous mound among quarries and debris-heaps; the entrance-passage to the lower chamber is open, but, in all but exceptional conditions, it is deeply flooded
RCAHMS 1984, visited October 1981.
